


A Crown of Static Shadows

by heimskr



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: During Canon, Post-Quest: The Broken Ghost, Survival, World's Edge (Apex Legends)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heimskr/pseuds/heimskr
Summary: It's a normal day in the arena at World's Edge until a stray static storm clustered around the planet's harvester knocks out the majority of the power keeping the match running. Now the legends still in the running need to survive without the aid of the arena safeguards and get back to safety. (Set after the events of The Broken Ghost)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	A Crown of Static Shadows

“Straight ahead, Behind the supply bin -- _nei_ , Revenant, on the left.”

“I see them. Quit chattering in my ear.”

“How do you expect to take out the _veikur_ if you won’t take direction?”

“You are wasting your time, Bloodhound. _Demonio_ is thicker than titansteel."

“Under different circumstances, I might be flattered _Loba_.”

“ _Focus._ Unless you are prepared to take pride in your own defeat.”

 _Heimskr_. Bloodhound knew that being paired with both the shadow and the thief would be a challenge, but they had not quite imagined this level of self-sabotage. They had truly underestimated the pair’s pettiness, and how deep their grudge for one another ran. Any direction they had tried to give to one or the other was ignored, each convinced they somehow had more insight than they did.

Their insight had been why they were targeted on the field of battle first and why they were waiting upon the dropship now. Not that Revenant or Loba would hear anything about that. Bloodhound had taken that fall willingly, as was proper of any true _felagi fighter_ and they had not expected either of their teammates to take the time to summon them back.

But they found themselves sorely wishing that they would. Perhaps they might actually still have a chance to win this match.

“Are they still arguing?” came the voice of Wraith over their shoulder. When Bloodhound only offered a tired nod, she offered a sigh of condolences. “Sorry it was you this time.”

“This time?” Bloodhound knew what she meant, but they always found it fascinating to hear Renee talk about her time between time. It was more prudent to feign ignorance than to show genuine interest. They often found that genuine interest caused Wraith discomfort, and they would never force such things upon her on purpose. Still, they were surprised to find that Wraith was not actually prepared to speak on that topic.

“Well, the algorithm is supposed to shuffle us all at random,” Wraith commented instead with a vague gesture of her hand, seating herself beside Bloodhound with her legs crossed to watch the feed. Her entire squad had already been eliminated, so there was no risk of her whispering intel to hunters who were still active. In truth, Bloodhound was not certain they would have care either way. Their nerves had been tested enough that day. “But I am sure you of all people have noticed that there have been some favored pairings lately.”

She was right. They had noticed.

“It is...unsporting,” Bloodhound remarked dryly. _Unsporting_ wasn’t quite correct, but anything more correct would have been uncouth. Wraith rarely ever smiled for extended periods of time, but she did smile briefly then -- an indication that she could read their irritable mood _without_ whatever colorful language they had been thinking of using. “They are paired together because the betters find it amusing.”

“More money,” Wraith confirmed with a small sigh and a shrug. “It’s just the way things are.”

They could agree with that. Maybe it would be better to let them fall, to discourage such practices. It would be better for them, in the long run; Bloodhound had learned early on that those who watched over the games rarely had their best interests as legends at heart. There were two other squads still active, and there was a decent chance they would come out on top if they were hungry enough to win. The Gamemasters should not have been rewarded for such behavior.

But just as the thought occurred to them, the feed went dead -- along with every other electronic communication and device in the area. Instinctively, Bloodhound tapped their goggles only to find the mechanism unresponsive. Beside them, they spotted Wraith with gritted teeth, clutching her arm in pain. The instinctive offering of their arm to grasp instead was done silently, and Wraith took it without meeting their eyes, opening and closing her fist to give her something else to focus upon.

“Hey,” came a familiar voice through the doorway. Anita Williams was standing there, grasping the door frame with purpose. “Either of you got eyes on Paquette down there?”

“ _Nei_ ,” Bloodhound answered in place of Wraith, who was still struggling to compose herself. “What is it?”

The look they were given was accompanied with a sigh. It was obvious enough what had happened, overall, and she knew that was not what they were asking after. Her reluctant response came as she pinched between her eyes.

“Pathfinder’s down, and Talos is dark.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“...up...:”

_Tap_

“...need…”

_Tap_

“...carrying you…”

_Taptaptaptaptap_

“...up! … not allowed … out like this.”

He had powered back on somewhere in the middle of Loba trying to wake him by repeatedly tapping his forehead with the barrel of her gun. Revenant growled in irritation, slapping at it like he might swat a fly.

“About time. For a second, I thought you were really gone. That would have been too easy, and I--”

Revenant wasn’t listening, even as Loba attempted to engage with him. Most of his systems were still rebooting in the most unpleasant way possible, and every movement was grinding agony. Still, for all the unpleasant experience it was, he couldn’t find it in him to be anything more than mildly irritated. Every now and then, the arena would throw an odd challenge at them to content with. 

But he had to admit...something about this hit differently, and he did not have the attention span to split between entertaining Loba’s verbal sniping and figuring out what was going on.

“--responding. _Oi._ Are you listening to me?!” Loba’s voice became shrill as she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention, and Revenant grunted a forced acknowledgement. No, he hadn’t been listening even a little bit, but something about the frequency of her voice made him want to pick at his non-existent eardrums with his pinky. Nothing was worse than having audio receptors that begged to be soothed like a human’s eardrums might, and being able to do approximately nothing about it.

The pair of them were holed up in the area that had been dubbed the Skyhook, crouched behind a wall where a zipline waited to carry them upwards to the top platform. They had been preparing to traverse to call Bloodhound back down to them -- but somehow, that appeared to no longer be in the cards. The entire arena around them had lost all of its lighting, and even the bright green light of the respawn beacons had all gone out. What little light remained came from the moon in the sky, the pulsing red column of light coming from the planet harvester, and the eyes of the carved mountains beside them.

That explained why he felt like he’d just woken up from the worst hangover of his life. Why did he even have that memory?

“Ugh! Just for once, can you--”

“Shut up,” Revenant grumbled, picking himself up off the ground with a few clicks of his joints. “Listen.” Loba’s growl that she offered in return was acid, but she obeyed because she had noticed the disturbance in the eerie silence as well. Distantly, the sound of hissing and thundering footprints could be heard, and before long prowlers began to pour out of the mountainside in front of them.

The locking mechanisms must have failed as well.

“Tell me what happened while I was out,” Revenant demanded, softer. “The quick version.”

“Power failure,” Loba replied simply, her eyes still on the mountain. He had only himself to blame for that obvious answer and the smirk that came from Loba when he vocalized his displeasure.

“ _Slightly_ more elaborate version, girlie,” Revenant conceded irritably.

“Looked like a stray lightning bolt,” Loba continued, pointing at the smoky clouds that had gathered around the harvester’s beam of light in the distance. It didn't look like a natural storm - but then again, nothing at World's Edge really looked all that natural. The whole place had been engineered into an Apex Games arena, after all. “Think it’s safe to say the show is over?”

“Probably,” Revenant grunted, picking a shotgun off the ground where he had dropped it. He was almost disappointed, if he was being honest. The games had been a refreshing way to clear his head of ... well, everything. Now there were other, less entertaining things that he needed to occupy his time with if he didn't want to be stuck planetside with a giant "H" logo staring him down forever. Annoying. “Go find the others and see if you can get back to the dropship.”

“Alone? I don’t think so,” Loba scoffed, flicking the safety off of her pistol. That was smart of her. Sure, she would probably survive without his help, but with the amount of prowlers running amok and no idea where the others were -- well, it would be making things difficult for herself for no reason. And besides ... neither of them were exactly on the friendliest of terms with anyone who was still on the arena field. “And where exactly were _you_ planning on going?”

Revenant gave a jerk of his arm, loading a shotgun round into the chamber. “Thinning the herd. Unless you want to be chased all the way back to the Paradise Lounge,” Revenant offered, voice curdling like spoiled milk in the way it did whenever he was trying to get under her skin. It worked. She did not follow him right away -- but she followed, like a good dog ought to. 

Now he just had to make sure she didn't bite him too hard.


End file.
